


the body, burdened and miraculous

by blackkat



Series: IruObi Drabbles [9]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Akatsuki Hatake Kakashi, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Captivity, First Kiss, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Torture, Imprisonment, M/M, Rescue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-02
Updated: 2019-08-02
Packaged: 2020-07-29 10:48:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20080933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackkat/pseuds/blackkat
Summary: The door was locked from the outside, marked with a seal that the earthquake had clearly cracked. Iruka wonders if he could have gotten in, if it hadn’t been. Wonders, with a flicker of unsettled suspicion, whether the seal was supposed to keep people out, or whether it was meant to keep something in.





	the body, burdened and miraculous

**Author's Note:**

> For the prompt: IruObi, caught in a trap.

The cavern echoes with the sound of Iruka’s footsteps, and he almost can’t stand it. 

The space is dark, eerie, empty, a massive room crossed by vast, trailing roots like the bodies of petrified dragons. Somewhere, water drips, and the moss on the walls catches sounds strangely, makes the echoes come back just a little off. It sets Iruka’s teeth on edge, makes his breath come quicker; it feels like the weight of the mountain above him is entirely eyes, heavy and staring. 

He doesn’t turn around, though. Doesn’t look back towards the lighted hallway he just came from, towards Genma and Aoba and Asuma as they desperately scour the base for clues. Iruka passed more than enough traces of occupation, of _Madara,_ that he should have stopped and called for them, but he can’t. 

There’s no chance that Naruto is here, no chance that Akatsuki left him in a cell when they vanished with the rest of the jinchuuriki they’ve managed to capture, but—

But. 

Iruka’s breath shakes out of his lungs, but he curls a hand into a fist, lifts his other hand with its palm-full of Katon jutsu higher. The flickering light can’t encompass the whole space; it barely reaches the edge of the nearest root, scorched and scarred like someone was practicing here.

It’s odd, off—Iruka passed several training rooms meant for that kind of thing, and this cavern doesn’t have any of the same equipment. Frowning, he reaches out, touches the clear aftermath of a jutsu, and then draws back, looking around. 

The door was locked from the outside, marked with a seal that the earthquake had clearly cracked. Iruka wonders if he could have gotten in, if it hadn’t been. Wonders, with a flicker of unsettled suspicion, whether the seal was supposed to keep people out, or whether it was meant to keep something in. 

If it was the latter, it must have been a while ago. There are thick drifts of dust over everything, and though a path across the floor is worn clean, it’s narrow, unwavering. Whoever was visiting had one destination in mind, and went there without hesitation. Iruka follows the track, careful not to scuff the lone clear print of a shoe in the dust to one side; it’s a woman’s sandal with a raised heel, and that means Konan. Iruka has no idea why Akatsuki’s strategist would come to an empty room, but she clearly visited frequently.

It’s less hopeful than he would like. From all reports Madara is the one who deals with the jinchuuriki, Madara and Zetsu. Konan and Pein are the commanders, mobilizing Akatsuki’s forces to harry the villages, and while Pein often accompanies Madara to capture the jinchuuriki and bijuu, Konan doesn’t. Gaara even said he never saw her at all in the months they had him. 

Still, Iruka thinks, setting his jaw and ducking under the slope of another root. Still. Any piece of information right now is valuable. Madara took Naruto, wrecked half the village and captured the closest thing Iruka has to family, and—

He remembers confronting Kakashi, across the rubble of what used to be a block of houses. Remembers the way Kakashi’s cloud-patterned cloak swayed in the wind, the way his Sharingan burned. He didn’t smile, didn’t joke the way he sometimes does with the Konoha shinobi he confronts, just—

_I won’t abandon my comrades_, he’d said, and Iruka had laughed so he wouldn’t cry. 

_**We** were your comrades, too, Kakashi_, he’d yelled, and Kakashi had stared at him, perfectly composed, perfectly emotionless. He’d tried to kill Iruka while wearing that look, and the only time Iruka even saw it _waver_ was when Yamato and Rin had cut in, throwing themselves against their former friend like they could change his mind by beating him. 

It hadn’t worked. Konan and Kakashi make a devastating team, and they proved it then. Put Tsume in the hospital, beat Kotetsu into unconsciousness, held off Asuma and Kurenai working together, and Rin and Yamato with all their determination, until Madara had finished with Jiraiya and Naruto. Iruka got to the site of the battle too late, was only able to help pull the Sannin from the rubble. 

Omoi and Karui bringing word that Kumo had staged a raid on a possible Akatsuki base was the only point of hope in the aftermath. 

Iruka’s hands tremble as he pushes past a curtain of hanging moss, the long, damp strands sticking to his gloves. There are blue hairs caught against the green, more signs of Konan’s presence, and Iruka wants to set them on fire, wants to burn the whole base to the ground, but he controls himself. Controls the urge, the fury, the terror, and pushes on. He’s not an active shinobi, he’s a _teacher,_ but—

Konoha is shorthanded enough right now, and Tsunade gave him the mission as soon as he asked, the set of her mouth just as desperately angry as Iruka feels. She loves Naruto, too, and having a Konoha missing-nin as infamous as Kakashi help snatch him right out of the village was a horrifying shock for all of them. 

He’ll be fine, Iruka tells himself, though he can’t bring himself to believe the words. They had Gaara for months, and when Rin and Utakata rescued him he was unharmed. Pale, shaken, furious, but not hurt. Whatever Akatsuki wants the bijuu for, it isn’t ready yet, and that gives them time to breathe. 

(_Why are you doing this, Kakashi?_ Rin had cried, burning with Isobu’s power, furious and ferocious as she faced her former teammate down across the battlefield and blocked him from killing his friend, her lover. _This isn’t what Obito would have wanted!_

Iruka’s breath had caught involuntarily. Not a name that Rin _ever_ speaks, not a person that anyone brings up. The first known victim of Madara after his reappearance, killed when he stopped Rin from committing suicide at Kakashi’s hand when Kiri sealed the Sanbi in her. He’d stepped between them, a boy thought killed in the war, a friend to both, and died there. 

One year later, Kakashi went out on an ANBU mission. The weeks had stretched out into months without his return, then a year, and in the aftermath of the Kyuubi’s destruction a courier had carried a familiar hitai-ate back to the village, scored through with a long, deep cut. 

The question had made Kakashi stop, made him _look,_ and his gaze was cold and steady and Iruka had felt invisible, out of place. It was meant to be a private conversation, a revelation between betrayed friends, and he was intruding. 

_I don’t care what Obito would have wanted_, he’d returned. _He’s not here. And I don’t abandon my comrades._)

Brushing away a thick net of cobwebs, Iruka glances around. In the space between the roots, there’s no more sign of Konan’s presence; the dust is undisturbed here, but after a moment Iruka spots a single white feather, shaped from paper. Stooping, he picks it up, remembering how Konan had retreated, an angel of destruction as she rose above the battlefield of Konoha on wide white wings. Glances up, and—

One of the roots rises sharply, disappearing into the wall. From every other angle, Iruka has seen nothing strange, but from this one there’s a faint gap beneath the wood. Just a crack, one piece of darkness that’s darker than the rest, and the light from Iruka’s Katon can’t touch it. He frowns, leaning forward to get a better look, and the opening comes clear. A doorway set back into the stone, concealed beneath the draping root and overhanging rock, and something in Iruka’s chest clenches. 

They haven’t been able to find where Akatsuki retreated to. There’s been no sign of them. If this is a tunnel, or maybe a prison, if there’s a clue here, it could be the key to finally finding Naruto. 

Iruka can’t fly, isn’t anything close to Konan in terms of power, but this is simple. Gathering a touch of chakra, he leaps, twists, and hits feet-first on the root. For a moment it groans, sways, and Iruka holds his breath, but the root settles back again, and with a sigh of relief Iruka drops down onto the lip of the opening. The flickering Katon jutsu illuminates a narrow passage, just barely wide enough for a person to walk normally, and there are a few more feathers on the floor here. 

There are seals here, too, and the moment Iruka steps past the edge of the passage his chakra starts to fade. The Katon jutsu flickers, then winks out, and Iruka has just enough time to feel a flare of panic before the seals start to glow gold. 

Bindings, Iruka thinks, able to recognize the basics in each one, if not their full purpose. All along the passageway, carved into the stone and inlaid with metal, are bindings meant to contain something powerful. Something _dangerous._ There are control seals here, too, promoting hopelessness, quiet, resignation, and Iruka swallows, horror curling in his stomach as he traces his fingers over them. Ambient chakra is being pulled in, used to keep them powered at all times—he recognizes that, too, because he uses it on his traps frequently. _And—his_ chakra is in there as well, what the seals just stole. Anyone who comes here adds power to them, voluntarily or not. 

One step back outside the seals’ area of influence and Iruka can feel his chakra start to trickle back, but once he’s sure of that he grits his teeth and steps back in, forges forward to follow the path. It curls into the mountainside, long, looping curves until Iruka isn’t entirely sure which direction he’s even going, and every new stretch of corridor brings another set of seals. There isn’t a single break in them, and Iruka’s stomach twists, somewhere between quiet horror and desperate hope. 

Whatever Madara is keeping down here, it’s something he _really_ doesn’t want to get out. 

Of course, there’s every chance it’s not Naruto, or any of the captured jinchuuriki. There’s every chance that whatever was down here, Madara moved it when he abandoned the base before Kumo could reach him. But—

One step, and the passage opens. 

It’s a small room, wider and higher than the tunnel but not by much. Iruka stops short in the doorway, the golden seal-light curling up around him, and stares. 

There’s a large seal in the center of the floor, ringed with iron bars like a prison cell. A thin, slow trickle of water flows through one corner of the cell, pools near the center, and then flows out, and Iruka knows the trick—it’s an old one, from Uzushio, using an element in motion to keep a seal active and chakra flowing through it without degrading the lines. And, he supposes with that dark, rising dismay, it makes it easy to keep a prisoner in the same sell without ever having to worry about carrying water to them. 

And there is a prisoner. A man, a little older than Iruka, is sprawled out across the stone, eyes closed, chest rising and falling. His hair is long, probably down to his knees, and wild, and there are deep old scars carved into his skin. 

Even with the scars, it’s a familiar face. Not someone Iruka knows personally, but—

He saw Uchiha Obito in the village more than once, as a child. Knew him, knew his smile, knew how he would take on dozens of D-ranks and spend the day running all over Konoha. Knew his fate, too, dead in the war at Kakashi’s hand, a tragic accident and an even more tragic sacrifice. 

Except, _again,_ Obito is alive after reports of his death. Not just a cave-in this time, but a hand through his chest, and Iruka’s breath shakes out of him. He stumbles back, bumping into the wall, and has to concentrate to keep his legs from folding. 

Suddenly it’s far more understandable why Kakashi is fighting for Akatsuki. 

“Hell,” Iruka breathes, and closes his eyes, trying to work it out. Kakashi, desperate and grieving, on an ANBU mission in Lightning Country, finding out somehow that Obito wasn’t dead. Madara, probably—if he’d approached Kakashi, told him, used Obito as collateral, what are the odds that Kakashi _wouldn’t_ defect from his village, follow Madara in order to save the boy who died for him?

And if Madara was keeping Obito’s location a secret, keeping him from Kakashi so he could ensure Kakashi’s loyalty, it’s no wonder Madara left Obito here, safe where no one would find him. If the earthquake hadn’t broken the seal on the doors, if Iruka hadn’t followed Konan’s path and stood at just the right angle—

There’s a breath, a shift. Iruka’s eyes snap to Obito, just in time to see him stir. He rolls over onto his back with a sound like pain, and Iruka’s eyes trace down his chest, to the wide swath of bandages wound around his stomach. As he moves, the seals beneath him pulse, and he grimaces, head falling back. 

They’re draining him, Iruka realizes with a start. For every moment Obito is in there, he’s not just being contained, he’s being _used._ The chakra must be going somewhere else—to Madara, maybe—and it leaves Obito even more helpless. Even more trapped, because there’s no way for him to break out no matter how strong he was when they threw him in there. 

But seals are meant to contain or they’re meant to keep something out. Not both. Almost _never_ both. 

“Obito?” Iruka says, and dark eyes snap open. In an instant, Obito is on his feet, facing Iruka, and there’s a savage snarl on his face that’s entirely a threat. Entirely a challenge. His fists are clenched, ready to swing, and even if he’s wavering, he’s still standing. 

His eyes are closed, the lids stitched shut with a gruesome, crooked line of black thread across his cheeks, and Iruka finds that he can’t even start to breathe. 

“Who’s there?” Obito demands, and it’s a sharp bark, defensive, angry. For all that he’s probably been a prisoner for almost twenty years, he’s broad, muscles clear—but then, Iruka thinks, all shinobi are taught how to keep themselves fit if they get captured, how to wait for a chance to escape no matter how long they’ve been kept. 

Taking a careful step forward, Iruka clears his throat. “I’m Umino Iruka,” he says, and then realizes that there’s no reason Obito would know the name of an unrelated Academy student four years younger than him. Obito was graduating to chuunin by the time Iruka entered, and though Iruka knew him, remembers their one interaction with carefully preserved clarity, the odds that Obito remembers are—

“You—you were the one who tripped,” Obito says, and falters. Just a little, but the tension in him eases towards bewilderment, and he frowns. “With the grocery bags.”

Iruka can feel heat in his cheeks, the remembered humiliation of falling flat on his face in front of a new chuunin, a boy who smiled and laughed kindly and helped him carry the groceries back to his family despite the fact that he probably had a hundred other things to do. 

“You remember?” he asks unsteadily, and when there’s no reaction from the seals under his feet he keeps moving, stepping right up to the bars. 

Obito snorts, head tilting like he’s listening. “I haven’t exactly had a lot of memories to replace that one,” he says sardonically, bitter as wormwood, and then pauses. “You’re alone,” he says suspiciously. 

Konan, Iruka realizes. He’s listening for Konan or Madara. Maybe Kakashi, too. “Not in the base,” he says, and closes his fingers around the bars. “Madara abandoned the place a few days ago. Sarutobi Asuma and his squad are with me. I-I came to look for Naruto.”

The breath Obito takes is ragged. “They got Minato’s son?” he demands, and it cracks halfway through. “They—is he—”

“He’s alive,” Iruka confirms, because he _has_ to believe that. There’s no other option. “Madara’s been keeping the jinchuuriki, trying to get all of them before he _does—something_ with them.”

“And Kakashi is helping him,” Obito says softly, furiously. Tilts his head forward, hiding his face, and presses a hand over his eyes. _“Fuck,”_ he snarls. 

Iruka swallows. Summons some small bit of amusement from the depths of his desperation, and says, “Exactly.”

The scowl that crosses Obito’s face isn’t directed at Iruka, but it’s ferocious either way. “Madara bolted,” he says, testing, and when Iruka makes a sound of confirmation he snarls. “Get me out,” he orders, though that tone is halfway to a plea. “Any way you can. I know exactly what he’s trying to do, and I can find him.”

_Too easy,_ Iruka thinks, some kernel of mistrust surfacing, but—

They’ve been losing, losing no matter what they do or what they try. Surely, at this point, they’re finally due some decent luck. Even if it comes in the form of a ragged, furious prisoner who should be dead twice over. 

Still, some bit of sense has Iruka pausing, swallowing. “Why did Madara capture you?” he asks. 

Obito laughs, but there’s no amusement in it. Lifts his head, touching his empty eye sockets, and says bitterly, “My Mangekyo. It’s one of the reasons he recruited Kakashi, too. Kamui makes you invulnerable, and it can jump you across the world in less than a second.”

“That’s _your_ eye?” Iruka says in horror, because Madara’s ability to slide right through even the strongest hit was the main reason he won so easily in Konoha. Not a power anyone had recorded, not something even Tsunade knew about, but if it was a stolen eye, that would explain it.   
“Unfortunately,” Obito says darkly, and moves forward, closing a hand around the bars right below Iruka’s grip. “And he’s _kept_ me around because he shoved so much Senju DNA into me that he thinks he can use me to turn the Sharingan into the Rinnegan. Apparently Nagato isn’t falling into step the way he wants.”

“Because Madara with one of the great dojutsus isn’t bad enough,” Iruka says faintly, and Obito snorts. 

“I’ll swear it on whatever you want,” he says more quietly, desperately, and his fingers tighten, slide up. “Just—please. Get me _out.”_ A moment of fumbling and then he presses his hands over Iruka’s, clutching at him. Iruka wonders, distantly, how many times Obito has been touched in the last twenty years. Not often, at the very best. And, given that he’s being held at least partly as leverage over Kakashi—  
Iruka can imagine that at least some of those touches weren’t kindly meant. 

(He doesn’t think about Obito’s bandaged ribs, the faint spots of blood on the white of the wrap. They can deal with that once Obito is free.)

“Okay,” he says, equally quiet, and the sound that tears out of Obito’s throat is wrecked, wretched. He clutches at Iruka’s wrists, leans his head against the bars, and Iruka leans forward in return, touching their foreheads together. Staying there, just for a moment, in an attempt to brace Obito just a little bit. 

“Thank you,” Obito whispers, and Iruka closes his eyes, remembers a ten-year-old boy with the brightest smile and pretty dark eyes, and breathes out. 

“I’ll get you out,” he promises, and one of Obito’s hands touches the side of his face, curves. Obito kisses him through the bars, desperate and sweet, and Iruka kisses back without a second of hesitation. 


End file.
